"It is important to recall Bronson’s observation that no first hand ethnographic reports from South India mention that the steel produces a Damascus pattern (Bronson, 1986, 39-40). In addition, the experiments performed by Wilkinson (1839, 389) on crucible steel ingots from Cutch, in Northern India on the India-Pakistan border, and from Salem, southern India, concluded that only the ingot from Cutch produced a good pattern, whereas the Salem sample had only a slight indication of a pattern. Therefore, the evidence from all archaeological, ethnographic, and replication experiments, indicates that crucible steel from South India/Sri Lanka, i.e. the areas associated with the terms wootz, produced crucible steel blades with either no pattern or a faint pattern only. Arguably, it is the coarse pattern, such as the Kara Khorasan pattern, that is most often associated with or characterizes “Damascus steel” (refer to Figures 97-100). As mentioned above, the archaeological evidence from Merv and Termez indicated that the microstructure of the ingots could have resulted in a coarse patterned blade. In addition, textual evidence (e.g. al-Beruni in Said, 1989, 219-220), and ethnographic reports (e.g. Abbott, 1884; Wilkinson, 1839, 38) all state that crucible steel blades with a good pattern were produced in Central Asia and Northern India, places where the term pulad (or related term) was used. Therefore, all the afore mentioned evidence indicates that crucible steel from Central Asia, which includes Northern India, could produced crucible steel blades with a coarse pattern, while the South Indian/Sri Lankan wootz ingots probably did not. This is contrary to the generally accepted opinion that Indian wootz steel was primarily used to produce “Damascus blades” (e.g. Verhoeven, 2001; Figiel, 1991, 7; Rostoker and Bronson, 1990, 130; Sachse, 1994, 67). "
That's from (soon to be) Dr. Feuerbach's thesis, available in the thread regarding the practicality of wootz.
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